A study performed by the American Council on Education Center for Policy Research and Strategy, Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) play an integral role in the education of students of color, those from low-income backgrounds, and students who are first in their family to attend college. The data in the report verify that working assumption with concrete numbers that show income mobility by students who attended MSIs across the country exceeding mobility rates at non-MSIs. This distinction is an important one to make at a time, when public implications for institutions – including many MSIs – already struggling with low general and educational expenditures and endowment sizes. This distinction is further important given the outsized performance of MSIs in generating income mobility even while they are operating with limited resources.

The importance of MSIs to individual students, families, communities, and our national economy cannot be overstated. MSIs are ubiquitous to the postsecondary landscape, representing roughly one-fifth of all degree-granting, Title IV-eligible institutions of higher education in 2014-15. In this same year, taken together, approximately 700 MSIs enrolled 4.8 million students, or 28 percent of all undergraduates enrolled in U.S. higher education.

Finally, there is evidence that MSIs provide students of color with stronger academic experiences and more supportive environments whole in college than do non-MSIs.

According to the latest study conducted by the American Council on Education (ACE) Center for Policy Research and Strategy, Alcorn State University, Southern University and A&M College, Lincoln University (PA), Dillard University, and Alabama State University leads other historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in the Minority Serving Institutions category as Engines of Upward Mobility study.

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The date presented in this report verify a working assumption of those familiar with MSIs – that these institutions are standouts in the field for their contribution to income mobility. This distinction is important given the outsized performance of MSIs in generating upward income mobility even whole they are operating with limited resources. Further, across the whole of higher education, we could stand to learn and share the policies and practices employed by the top-performing MSIs, such that the field can from their success.